Don’t Look Up is a block buster movie depicting the end of the world, courtesy of a comet aimed directly at earth. The dooms day prediction is met with wide spread skepticism and disbelief. TIME’S UP is a new novel with the same starting scenario but with several additional twists and turns that only a novel could handle. The bringer of death is nothing as over used as a comet or asteroid but a previously unimagined threat, one that few even thought possible. It brings death slowly in small doses spread over time. People get to watch themselves and their loved ones perish. In TIME’S UP the prediction is accompanied by an offer to evacuate a small number of young humans to a new home before the end comes. The offer comes from an unseen source that is never identified. Rather than two clueless-outside-of-their-lab astronomers spreading the bad news, the hero is a mestiza woman who was born into poverty in the slums of Juarez Mexico. Rather than only spreading the news, she grabs for the only life line available even without proof it actually exists.
The walking dead really do exist. They move freely among us. They are better dressed, groomed, have better posture and speak, even eloquently at times. They rarely have blood dripping off their chins. Those ugly, shabby, stumbling, bloody people on TV are just actors. The real walking dead are the career politicians or ‘carpols’ for short.
Carpols were once alive but were infected by an insatiable lust for power. This lust destroyed their humanity including their compassion, decency and sense of fairness. It did not interfere at all with their ability to walk, talk and behave almost like humans.
Carpols are those politicians who have bought into the idea that individuals cannot accomplish anything. No individual can ever have enough power to really make a difference. Carpols are convinced that the only way anything can be accomplished is if they all gang up. This gang is called a Political Party. Only the Party, as a unified whole, can accumulate enough power to make anything happen. It’s like reaching critical mass for a thermonuclear bomb.
Once the carpol accepts this fact, then he must also accept that the Party’s goals are all that matter. The things he wanted to accomplish when he got into politics to make things ‘better’ no longer matter. The carpol loses what made him and his ideas unique and special. He relinquishes his self-identity without which he becomes one of the walking dead.
The Party gets its power from the voters. To wrest the power they crave they manipulate the fundamental human weakness: fear. Carpols have devised two ways to use fear to seize and hold on to power.
The first way is to instill it. The Party must create or shape what the voters believe about some external thing or force. They have to convince the voters that a threat exists, that it is coming their way and that they are unable to protect themselves. A neighboring nation threatens. Losing their job threatens. Illness threatens. The horrible things the opposing Party will do if it gets the chance, threaten.
Once a human is loaded up with fear, he will give away his power to anyone he believes will protect him. When he is loaded up with fear, a Party will be there claiming be that protector. As soon as a human believes that a Party is protecting him from some terrible threat, the carpols have his power.
The other way to gain power is more insidious. The Party gives or pretends to give voters something they really like or need and then makes them fear losing it. It could be a huge powerful military. It could be medical insurance. It could be unemployment compensation. By the time the voter becomes dependent on a Party for the things he wants and needs his power has been vacuumed up.
The Parties are so good at using fear to inspire loyalty that some humans may even come to identify with a Party though in reality all Parties are comprised only of politicians. The humans are just camp followers.
Lawyers who enter politics, which is the background of nearly all of them, quickly develop this craving to enjoy the power of a Party. The law profession teaches lawyers that they can say almost anything if it serves their client’s best interest. Their lawyer training has prepared them well for using partial truths, mischaracterizations, innuendo and carefully worded lies so all they have to do is transfer those practices to their Party. They can then say or do anything that is in their Party’s best interest.
So why do normal people turn into carpols? This had been a mystery for years but recent medical research may have shed some light on this strange phenomenon. A team of pediatricians attached sensors all over the little bodies of several newborn babies. These sensors detected what the researchers believe to be communication occurring among the internal organs of these newborns. This only happens in the first few months of life. Exactly how the communication works remains a mystery but researchers believe that the purpose of this intra-body conferencing is to establish which organ will be the body’s leader. After that harrowing slide down the birth canal, the little body knows it has entered a whole new world. This is going to take some getting used to and a good leader will be needed.
Each of the critical organs believes that it would make the best leader. The brain claims leadership because it controls everything from voluntary to involuntary actions. The heart claims it should be the leader because it supplies the blood that all the organs need. The eyes claim it because they collect most of the information about this strange new outside world. The stomach supplies all the nutrition the body needs so it should be in charge. Each organ argues its case on why it should be the leader.
While not as prominent an organ as the others, the anus also stakes its claim to leadership. This often results in jeers and jokes from the other organs. “There is no way the anus could lead the entire body,” they all say. The anus may become offended by this ridicule so it replies, “I’ll show you guys!” It shuts down. It tightens up. It lets nothing pass. Soon the brain gets dizzy. The heart beat becomes erratic. The eyes cannot focus. The stomach cramps up. If the anus can hold out long enough, if it can build the pressure up high enough, it can sometimes capture the leadership spot. These little babies grow up to be carpols.